


Closer

by The_Honeyed_Hufflepuff



Series: Between the Lines [3]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: M/M, The good shit, kissing against a bookshelf, y'know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 20:24:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20364577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Honeyed_Hufflepuff/pseuds/The_Honeyed_Hufflepuff
Summary: Simon just wants Baz to stop thinking.





	Closer

**Author's Note:**

> So basically, y'all, I put up [a kissing prompt list](https://thehoneyedhufflepuff.tumblr.com/post/186806348697/50-types-of-kisses-writing-prompts) on [my Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/thehoneyedhufflepuff) & I'm cross-posting here. 
> 
> Prompt: a kiss so desperate that the two wind around each other, refusing to let go until they are finished 
> 
> (I’m just now realizing that maybe I didn’t totally hit the prompt, but hope you like it anyway! Dedicated to everyone reading [Between the Lines](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18685069/chapters/44312203), since I’ve made y’all suffer 70k+ words of slow burn. It means the world to me that y’all are reading that story. Have a smooch.)

** SIMON **

I find Baz in the stacks after close.

Well, after I’ve finished my own work, I mean. That’s how it’s been lately—so busy out here that we finish in the café before the booksellers are even close to being done. Drives Baz bonkers, I think, all the mess. (He thinks people are rude for it. I think they’re just in a hurry. Or not paying attention.) (He says I give people too much credit.) (Maybe I do.)

The lights are dim when I find him squatting in front of one of the bookcases. (Nico says it’s to save on the electric bill. Ebb says her brother’s cheap.) (I don’t want to think about either of them just now.)

I let myself watch him, partly so I don't startle him by just showing up, and partly because I want to. He looks good, but that’s always (which is a bloody blessing and a curse, honestly). It’s a fucking miracle I get any work done at all with him looking like _ that. _ He’s all hard lines and copper skin and fitted clothes. (Fucking perfectly fitted clothes.) (Probably he gets everything tailored.) The only soft thing about him is his hair. It looks it, anyway. I know it would be, if I could just reach out and touch it. He’s left it down today, and I like his hair any way he does it but I especially like _ this. _The way it falls in a lazy wave across his forehead. I’ve thought of tucking it behind his ear more times that I can count by now.

And his hands. I _ know _those are soft, too. I’ve held one in mine. (Maybe it’s not such a good idea to think about that just now.) 

Anyway. I watch as he lifts himself up out of his squat, watch the way the creases in his trousers shift over his thighs as he stands to straighten the rest of the books. The way he shifts his weight to one foot, and the way his shirt’s tucked nicer than I could probably ever manage. (I’d love to untuck it for him, to splay my hands along his belly and against his back. To feel the warmth of his skin against mine. Fucking hell.)

I nearly jump when Baz says, “Snow.” He’s not looking at me; he’s too focused on putting the books right. (Or maybe he’s just nervous.) 

I make my way towards him until I’m stood right at the next bookcase. (He’s already fixed this one up, I think.) “Hey,” I say.

“Hey yourself, Snow,” he says. He’s lisping—he almost _ always _lisps around me these days, at least at the beginning.

"What're you doing?" I say, which is stupid, but.

Baz looks at me just so he can raise an eyebrow at me, the tosser. "What does it look like?" He doesn’t wait for an answer, just goes back to straightening his books.

Fuck, he frustrates the hell out of me sometimes. (I _ know _he’s supposed to be working, but still.)

I lean against the bookcase next to the one he’s working on, careful not to mess anything up as I do. “Look,” I start, and sigh. (I don’t know what to say, or how to say it. I just know I need to say _ something. _) (I just need to know he wants this, too.)

“_Look_,” I say again, and he actually does. Look at me, I mean. He looks at me, and shifts until he’s stood facing me, too. It makes me swallow. “I don’t know what it is you’re so afraid of, but like. Don’t be.”

And then I’m stepping towards him. (I didn’t tell myself to step towards him; it’s just _ happening. _) (I see him swallow, too.) (It makes me want to kiss him there, against his throat.)

I’m so close now, and he’s not backing away. (I can’t believe he’s not backing away.) He’s not looking away, either. He’s watching me with grey, stormy eyes, and I _ know _ he has to be afraid, but he shouldn’t be. He _ shouldn’t _be.

I reach out for him until I'm cradling his jaw in my hand. (I don't have to reach far, we're stood so close.) He shudders, just a little, when I let my thumb catch on his lips. (I've thought of his lips a lot, lately. About touching them. Mostly about kissing them.)

"What're you doing, Snow?" He says it softly, like a whisper. It almost makes his lisp worse. (I like it. I like his lisp. Full stop.)

"What does it look like?" I whisper back.

His eyes flick off to the side, like he's expecting everyone to have followed me here. "Simon…"

"It's alright," I say, and I bring my other hand up to properly hold his face. He's so close, and he smells so _ good, _like cedar and...what’d he call it? Bergamot. Cedar and bergamot.

His eyes drop down to my lips, just for a second, and that's when _ I _know it's alright.

"We shouldn—" he starts, but I stop the words with my mouth.

It turns out Baz’s lips are soft, too. _ So _soft. I don’t know what I was expecting. (Maybe I thought they’d be rough, since he’s a boy.) (Probably I should’ve known better.) 

Fuck, I hope I've not freaked him out.

He's still, but only for a moment—a second, maybe—before he takes me by the waist and pulls me in. 

He's taller than me like this. Alright, he's _ always _ taller than me, but I've never had to tilt my head back to kiss someone, have I?

Kissing. Holy fuck, I'm kissing_ Baz. _I can barely stop myself from breaking out in a grin. (Luckily my lips are occupied with something more important just now.)

I keep our mouths pressed together as I back him into the bookcase. He lets out a surprised little noise, and I take my chance to slide my tongue along his upper lip. I don't know why I'm surprised when he lets me in, but I am anyway. Still, it's good—_ so _good. Better than I knew a kiss could be, and we've only just started.

He tastes like that fancy drink he’s always ordering—like a candy bar. (I know because I’ve tasted it.) (I’ve not told him about that.) There’s something else, too, underneath. Not smoke. Something _ Baz. _

I’m kissing _ Baz. _

I bring one hand around the back of his head to tangle in his hair, to press his mouth closer to mine. Closer, closer, _ closer. _He sinks against the bookcase, just a bit—I know because it gets easier to reach his mouth—and hooks one long leg around one of mine to pull me in.

_ He wants me_, I think. _ He wants me,_ _he wants me, _he wants me.

It was stupid to ever think he didn’t.

Baz whimpers into my mouth when I slide my tongue against his, and I can’t bloody believe it. I can’t believe I’m kissing him, and that he’s kissing me back. But it feels like the rightest thing in the fucking world.

The bookcase is agitated behind him, but I don’t bloody care. I don’t even think _ Baz _cares. It won’t fall. It’s sturdy enough, to hold his weight. To hold mine. (I bring my other hand down to rest against his back, anyway, to keep the shelf from digging in. I can feel the heat of his skin through the fabric of his shirt. It makes my breath catch and shake and sigh.) 

Baz’s breath is shaking against my cheek, too. I wish I knew what he was thinking. I wish I knew how he likes to be kissed.

Fuck, this is his _first kiss. I’m _his first kiss, and I’m making his breath shake. I’m making him hum into my mouth and against my lips. I’m making him sink down against a bookcase. (Guess that’s what they mean by _weak in the knees._)Or maybe he’s just doing it so I don’t have to reach for him. (I didn’t mind reaching for him.) (I’ve been reaching for him for a while.) 

_ This is his first kiss, _ I think again. And then I realize he’s never been kissed anywhere else, either, and I want to be the first for that, too. I want to know what he sounds like without my mouth muffling his moans. (They’re soft, _ so _soft, but they’re there.) So I pull away.

He tries to follow me with his lips, but I nudge the side of his face with mine and start in on his neck, right below his ear. He gasps, and I want to hear it again. I want to suck a bruise there. I want everyone to know he’s mine. I just want him to feel _ good. _ To stop worrying. To stop _ thinking. _

His hands tighten against my hips. (He’s got such big hands, such long fingers, and they’re so _ warm _ against me, even through my shirt.) “Simon,” he sighs, and I press closer, if that’s possible. He sighs again, and I hum back. He shivers when my mouth vibrates against his skin. “Simon.” He’s not lisping anymore, and I wonder what that means. Maybe he’s not nervous anymore. Or maybe… 

“Simon, _ I can’t_—” Fucking hell, not _ again… _

  
“Simon!” My head jerks up and I look around stupidly to find Ebb. To find where her voice is coming from.

She’s stood in the doorway to the café’s back room, wiping her hands on her tea towel and waving at me. “Tired?” she says.

“Um. Yeah,” I say.

“You’ve just cleaned that table three times over. Any more and you’ll make it disappear.”

I look down at the table. “Right.”

Ebb just shoots me a knowing look and disappears back behind the swinging door.

Fucking hell, at least I can’t do _ this _ when I’ve got customers. Not that I’m not always thinking about Baz, I _ am. _But, well. Cleaning tables isn’t exactly rocket science. I don’t need to think about anything to do that. 

So I think of Baz. About touching him. Kissing him. Him _ wanting _me to kiss him, and him wanting to kiss me back. 

Sometimes I think that _ thinking _about it’s the closest I’ll ever get to the real thing. 

**Author's Note:**

> I’d like to think maybe this is what Simon thought of as he was cleaning up after close towards the end of chapter 10, right before he went out to help Baz clean up for real. Or maybe it’s some future fantasy of his, IDK. Maybe I’m going super meta & it’s an AU of my own AU. In any case, hope y’all enjoyed, because now I’ve gotta get back to working on the main story.
> 
> (Side note I hope this was decent; I’ve been writing too much slow burn & writing actually mouth-on-mouth action was a little tricky lol)
> 
> Come say hi to me on [Tumblr!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/thehoneyedhufflepuff) I'm a disaster over there.


End file.
